Western Home Buyers Leading the Nation, Taking Advantage of a Healthy Real Estate Market.
I can attest to the fact that this has been a remarkably dynamic home buying season. The Spring market is historically busy but this year’s activity seems to have been given a little extra boost. Hard to say why, although I feel like the rough winter in other parts of our country has been driving folks here to Arizona.
In spite of booming home buyer activity, inventory is still low. If you’re a potential home seller this is good news for you, don’t wait too long. With less competition, a property that is priced right will draw more interest, receive more showings, secure better and stronger (possibly multiple) offers, and as a result spend substantially less time on the market.
Home prices have been slowly and steadily rising but I don’t see this as a sustainable trend. Families with children typically want to be finished with their move by August. Given the now-customary closing timeline of 45 days, June 1st would appear to be the drop-dead date to get your home on the market and take advantage of the season and recent price hikes.
Homebuyers in the West are taking to the spring real estate season early this year, with home prices up 1.3 percent quarter-over-quarter in April—growth ahead of the typical May schedule, according to the latest Clear Capital Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report. The West saw an 8.1 percent price push year-over-year.
The rest of the country is waiting for a similar outpour of home-buying activity, says Clear Capital Senior Economic Analyst Allison Whealton.
“Growth in the West is beginning to pick up as spring buyers start to enter the market early, boosting price growth in the region, but other areas of the country don’t seem to have thawed out from the cold winter season just yet,” Whealton says.
Home prices in the Northeast and South have each grown 0.9 percent quarter-over-quarter, while prices in the Midwest have grown 0.5 percent, according to the report.
Increases at the national level posted at 1 percent for the first time this year, while year-over-year increases posted an unchanged 6.3 percent.
“Nationally, home prices have increased twice as fast in the first quarter of 2017 as they had in quarter one of 2016, and with the typical spring buying season in full swing, the next few months could be shaping up to be an impressive first half of the busiest buying season,” says Whealton.
The metropolitan areas with the fastest price growth are (in order) San Antonio, Texas; Fresno, Calif.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.; and Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Ore./Wash.
Tellingly, the share of distressed activity has fallen 11.8 percent year-over-year—a sign that “the housing market is at its healthiest state since the crash in 2008,” the report states.
Source: Clear Capital Reprinted with permission from RISMedia. ©2017. All rights reserved.
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Bill Salvatore / Arizona Elite Properties
Residential Sales, Marketing, and Property Management
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More Resources for Home Sellers and Home Buyers
Our Buyer’s FAQ page has 9 of the most frequently asked questions from Home Buyers, 
along with 10 additional resources for Home Buyers at the bottom of the page.
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Thinking of Selling your home? First check out our 9 FAQs for Sellers. Then read on, there are 9 additional resources for Home Sellers at the bottom of the page.
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